Tom, this is the Empire State Building. I’ve seen it now. Wow! It’s as big as you think and then bigger! But I haven’t been to the top. I hope I’ll get there tomorrow. I want to go at night. I think it should be something to see, the lights of all the other skyscrapers. Tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day. I’ll be standing on Fifth Avenue and watching – that should be something to see too – maybe just a bit bigger than Baltinglass. The biggest Paddy’s day parade there is! I’ve got some police friends who’ll be marching it. Enjoy your parade as well!
Stefan Gillespie sat at the desk in his room at the Hotel Pennsylvania, writing a postcard to his son. The desk was in front of the window, on the corner of 7th and 33rd, looking out over the Pennsylvania Station and across the lights of a thousand Manhattan buildings, high and low, towards the Hudson River. He poured the last of a bottle of Eichler beer, happy to do nothing except sit in the chair and gaze out over the city.
The radio was playing quietly in the background, the last blue notes of Glenn Miller’s ‘Moonlight Serenade’. He didn’t particularly notice the sombre organ music that followed a bouncy advertisement for Pepsi Cola. ‘Pepsi Cola hits the spot. Twelve full ounces, that’s a lot. Twice as much for a nickel too.’ He didn’t register the sombre voice that spoke over it. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, we present at this time the regular weekly broadcast of Father Charles Coughlin, pastor of the Shrine of the Little Flower, in Detroit, Michigan.’ But the voice that came next pulled his attention away from the window. It was slow, even laboured, but the words were enunciated with a weight and precision that seemed to insist that every consonant, every vowel mattered.
‘Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, I ask your indulgence as I return once more to the gruesome subject of war, but it is my duty to disclose to you information which does not level itself down to ordinary people. We Americans have been victimised by invisible forces which are determined to embroil us in war. Is this democracy? When ninety-five per cent of our population abhors the very word “war”, is this democracy?’ Stefan was looking away from the window, at the radio. It was a curious voice, and curious words; they weren’t the words he expected to hear in New York.
‘When ninety-five per cent of our fellow citizens have their minds tortured, their passions agitated, by the five per cent of internationalistic warmongers, whose sole, insidious aim is the destruction of the so-called totalitarian states, is this democracy? Are we not used like putty in the hands of those responsible for the half-truths, the warmongering which appears daily in our press? When the catchphrase “unjust aggressors” was used to stir up your wrath against Germany and Italy, were you conscious of the real truth of unjust aggression, of Britain’s seizure of the African continent in the last years of the last century, conducted more ruthlessly than any seizures accredited to Italy and Germany in the past two years? Who were responsible for the silence but the scheming internationalists, descendants of the Father of Lies? Did they tell of the crimes of France, that other great democracy? No! See the hidden hand of the internationalists who dominate governments and nations and control the world. Who wants to drive America to play a part in the impending European clash? Ask the leaders of the League for Peace and Democracy! Ask the internationalists who shuttle gold back and forth across the Atlantic! Ask the munitions makers! Ask the Jews who refuse to oppose Godless communism as they oppose Nazism!’
There was a knock on the door. Stefan got up and walked across the room. The voice had mesmerised him for several minutes. He knew little about what was happening in America, its politics and its preoccupations; but hardly noticing it he had left Europe and its dark quarrels behind him. Now that over-precise, rhythmic voice, a voice that had enough of Ireland in it to make him even more uncomfortable, had taken him back to the politics and preoccupations on the other side of the Atlantic. They were all here, of course they were all here; but to listen to such a shrill expression of them was a shock to him. It was as much the tone, cold and dark, as the words themselves. He felt it ought not to belong in this city of towers and lights. But there it all was, in the very air, crackling down out of the night sky.
As he opened the door he was pleased to see that John Cavendish had indeed found him. Cavendish walked in, pulling off his overcoat and dropping it down on the bed. He looked at Stefan for a moment, smiling.
‘You haven’t changed, Stefan.’
‘It’s four years, not so long I suppose.’
‘No, I mean you haven’t changed. The first time I met you, you’d been beaten black and blue. Your face looked like it does now. A bad habit.’
Stefan glanced at the mirror behind him and laughed; he had forgotten the altercation in the club on 52nd Street. The first time he had met the army officer it had been the night after a run in with two Special Branch detectives who had a point to make. His face had probably looked much worse then.
‘Your prisoner wasn’t in the mood to go home then?’
‘It wasn’t him. But he’d made some friends in New York. They were reluctant to break up the party. They thought they’d break up some cops.’
Cavendish bent over his coat and took out a half bottle of Bushmills.
‘Have you got any glasses?’
He slumped down into an armchair.
Stefan went into the bathroom and came back with two tumblers. Cavendish was looking at the radio. The slow words were still coming out.
‘Now that democracy seemingly has failed in America, because it was irreverently wedded to international capitalism, the schemers plan to destroy our form of government and replace it with an absolute dictatorship, by pleading with you ill-informed people to save democracy! Democracy?’
‘The Radio Priest! I wouldn’t have thought he was up your street.’
Stefan took the bottle of whiskey. He walked across to the desk and turned off the radio; he was glad that the piercing voice had stopped now.
‘It just came on after Glenn Miller. Who the hell is he?’
He opened the whiskey bottle and poured out two glasses.
‘Father Charles Coughlin,’ said the army officer, settling back into the chair and yawning. ‘The Shrine of the Little Flower. The best-known priest in the country. Anti-war, anti-communist, anti-Roosevelt, anti-capitalist, anti-British, anti-Semitic, and now anti-democracy apparently. He’s got an audience of millions. There are a lot of people who’d like to shut him up, including most of the Catholic hierarchy. He frightens the life out of them. That was him on a quiet day. There’s even a song about him. “Yonder comes Father Coughlin, wearing the silver chain – Gas on his stomach and Hitler on his brain.” And isn’t he a credit to us all?’ Cavendish took the glass Stefan held out and grinned broadly. ‘You wouldn’t be long working out the old bastard’s mammy and daddy came from the oul sod itself, would you?’
‘You wouldn’t so. It’s in his voice.’
Stefan sat back down at the desk.
‘I was talking to Leo McCauley at the consulate this morning,’ said Cavendish. ‘He told me there was a guard coming to take your man Harris back. I didn’t dream it was you. A bit of a cock up, eh? The NYPD wouldn’t have been too happy.’
‘Not very, but it’s un-cocked up now. It’s nothing to do with me anyway. I’m only here because Mr Mac Liammóir thought I’d frighten Mr Harris a bit less than someone from Special Branch. Nobody wanted a mammy-killer raining on the World’s Fair parade. I just sit on the plane and make sure he gets back. So what’s all this World’s Fair about with you?’
‘Security and all that. It doesn’t amount to much really. The army found me a few other jobs to do here. I was in Washington for a while.’
‘No more intelligence then?’
‘Well, old habits,’ laughed Cavendish. ‘I might send G2 a postcard now and again. I keep an eye open so. You meet all sorts in New York.’
He looked down for a moment. Stefan could see he was preoccupied. He took a slow sip of whiskey, and then carried on making easy conversation.
‘You’re really still down in Baltinglass?’
‘When I’m not in New York.’
‘You should come out to the World’s Fair. It is worth seeing.’
‘Isn’t it all?’ Stefan looked back towards the window.
‘You should still do it. It’s like nothing else.’
‘I’ve only got two days before the plane leaves.’
‘I’ll drive you out there. Just spend an hour, you won’t forget it.’
John Cavendish stood up and walked towards the desk. Stefan was still sipping his whiskey, but the army officer had already finished his. He poured another one and drank half of it immediately, looking out through the window. There was only the sound of traffic, a muffled music through the glass. Stefan wouldn’t have put him down as a drinker when they had met before, but he had already reached out for the bottle again. You couldn’t judge those things. And there was something about the conversation that was, well, odd; it seemed easy enough but there was tension in it. It didn’t feel like the acquaintances-in-a-strange-town visit that was advertised.
‘I want you to do me a favour, Stefan.’
He looked up at Cavendish. The captain was more serious now. He went back to the armchair. As he sat down Stefan could see he was tired. It wasn’t just tired; it was a kind of weariness; the tension was a part of that too, wherever it was coming from. There was more than the Irish Pavilion’s security in his head, and more than a drink and a chat about old times.
‘I need to get something to Dublin, as quickly, as safely as I can.’
Stefan said nothing; clearly old habits did die hard after all.
‘Nothing’s going to be any faster than the way you’re going, on the flying boat, and I doubt it could be any safer. Even sending something in the diplomatic bag from Washington – it takes forever and even using the damn thing draws attention to whatever you put in it. I’ve got some material, papers, that need to go to Commandant de Paor. You’ll remember him.’
‘He was your boss in G2. And maybe still is?’
The captain shrugged.
‘I take it this is all material no one knows I’ve got.’
‘You’ve got no connection to anybody at the embassy in Washington, or the consulate here. You don’t know a soul, and the reason you’re here is simple. You’ve got your witness or prisoner, or whatever you’re telling him he is.’ Cavendish smiled; he was well informed. ‘You’ve got no particular connection to me. Better not to tell the consul general we’re old friends.’
Stefan looked surprised.
‘I’m not doubting Leo McCauley, not for a minute, but we’re all still living in an Irish village sometimes, even in the middle of New York. Everyone knows everyone’s business. I try to keep away from all that. As far as my business is concerned, well, some of it – it’s better if no one knows.’
Stefan nodded, simply accepting it.
‘The trouble is I don’t know who does know my business now.’
He stopped, absorbed by his own thoughts. His glass was empty.
Stefan topped up his own tumbler and walked over to fill Cavendish’s.
‘I’ll tell you what I think you need to know, Stefan.’ The intelligence officer had decided more was required. ‘So if anything happens to me –’
Stefan looked at him harder.
Cavendish laughed.
‘I don’t mean that the way it came out.’
It sounded like he meant it exactly the way it came out.
‘I can’t talk directly to Gerry de Paor, and I don’t want to write it down at the moment. All I’m asking you to do is get on the plane with an envelope in your bag. But I guess you have to know enough to keep your wits about you, that’s all.’
He hesitated, reassuring himself that what he was doing was right once more. He hadn’t made this decision lightly.
‘I’ve been intercepting IRA ciphers here for three months now. Messages they’re couriering back and forward from Ireland. Some of the material’s already back there, with G2, but it still hasn’t been deciphered. They’re getting nowhere with it, but the more there is to work with the better the chances of cracking it. Though I hope I’ll be able to do something about that myself. If I do then I’ll risk a phone call to get that information through. But it’ll be very important then that they’ve got everything.’ He smiled. ‘Still, that’s all something I’ve yet to make happen. Anyway, you just take an envelope –’
‘More of the same?’ said Stefan.
‘More of the same and probably the last of it. My source has dried up. That’s the polite way we put it in this game. He dried up in the Hudson.’
‘So the IRA knew he was giving you information?’
‘They may not know who he was giving it to, but I have to assume, yes, they may know it was me. And if they hadn’t clocked me as G2, they probably have now. But the couriers have no idea about contents. They’re messengers, that’s it. I’d say the IRA would be confident about the ciphers. They’ve every right to be. We’ve had people working on them for months.’
‘Doesn’t that put you at risk?’
‘I don’t think it would, not normally.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Well, the IRA is a lot more popular here than it is at home, but knocking off Irish government employees isn’t going to endear them to anybody. There’s a kind of unwritten rule as far as the government and the IRA are concerned. Don’t embarrass us and you can get on with it. You can send money and explosives across the Atlantic, but don’t blow anyone up in America. It’s the old Irish village thing again too, just like home. You know yourself. The IRA could put the finger on every Special Branch man and Army Intelligence officer in Dublin, and the world and his wife knows who’s on the IRA Army Council. We don’t go around shooting each other though,’ Captain Cavendish smiled, ‘well, not most of the time anyway.’
‘But this is different?’
Stefan was still thinking about the word ‘normally’.
‘I don’t know. There are other people involved.’
‘Like who?’
‘Like German Intelligence.’
There was a tight smile on Cavendish’s face. Not everyone would have understood how that changed the game. Stefan Gillespie did. He might have forgotten that he did, but four years really wasn’t such a long time ago.
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know specifically. I mean there’s all the usual stuff they have in common. Number one is keeping America out of the war, that’s what brings German Americans and Irish Americans together politically. President Roosevelt is trying to amend the Neutrality Act in ways that would help Britain buy arms here. Congress is probably going to stop him and it’s Irish-American senators and congressmen who are making more noise about it than anybody else. And they’re winning. Why wouldn’t the IRA and the Abwehr be sniffing around all that? But that’s merely the stuff of everyday politics. You just heard some of it on the radio. Dear old Father Coughlin on every week to tell his flock the president’s dragging the country into a war and democracy’s the way to perdition. But there’s a lot more going on too. There’s the IRA bombing campaign in Britain. Among other things that is meant to show the Germans they can deliver the goods in the sabotage department if there’s a war. That’s not going well from what I’ve read.’
‘It’s a farce so far,’ said Stefan. ‘The last thing they blew up was a bit of Hammersmith Bridge and a public convenience in Birmingham. I’ve only been to Birmingham once, and from what I remember of the toilets that one’s maybe no bad thing. But sooner or later they’ll hit something bigger.’
‘The truth is they need to do better, a lot better,’ replied Cavendish, ‘if the Germans are going to take them seriously. That’s one of the reasons Seán Russell is here at the moment. It’s about money mostly, and it’s about persuading people the bombing campaign he cooked up with Dominic Carroll isn’t the mess it is. But it’s also about planning what’s going to happen next, in the event of a war. And there’s something else on. I don’t know what it is, but something here, that’s the word. Against all the unwritten rules, they’re planning something here.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘It’s from the German end. I don’t know if it’s the IRA and German Intelligence, or the IRA and some bunch of German Americans, or pro-Nazis. There are all sorts of German-American organisations out there. The Irish have got Clan na Gael and the Irish clubs – the Germans have got the German-American Bunds, complete with brown shirts, brass bands, flags and fuehrers. Sometimes they just drink a lot of beer and eat bratwurst, sometimes they go out and beat up a few Jews. But there’s more to it now.’
‘Presumably that didn’t come from an IRA cipher you can’t read?’
‘It comes from a lot of things,’ said the captain. ‘It’s in the air too.’
Stefan Gillespie was being drawn into it. He could feel it. It was that sensation again; his heart beating faster. He wanted to know more. But he could see that John Cavendish had gone as far as he intended to go.
‘Where does Dominic Carroll come into this?’ asked Stefan.
‘I told you, the bombs in Britain, the IRA declaration of war and all that bollocks, that’s what he and Seán Russell put together. He’s got a lot riding on that, and since it looks like all it’s going to achieve is to get a lot of IRA men locked up in Britain and Ireland, piss everybody off at home, and demonstrate very convincingly how fucking incompetent the IRA is –’
‘I’ve met Carroll.’
It was Cavendish’s turn to show surprise.
‘Where?’
‘On the flying boat. He was coming back from Ireland.’
‘Back from Berlin actually, Stefan. He was there last week.’
‘He didn’t mention that.’
Stefan turned and poured some more whiskey. As he stood up to take the bottle across to John Cavendish the army officer’s head had dropped. He was on the edge of falling asleep. His head snapped up and he grinned.
‘I’m banjaxed. I need to get home and get some sleep.’
He stood up, pulling on his coat. He picked up his glass and drained it.
‘I’ll catch up with you, Stefan. I’ll take you out to World’s Fair.’
‘I’ll leave it to you,’ Stefan replied.
John Cavendish nodded. He turned away and walked out.
Stefan stood still as the door closed. It was a strange meeting, and it took him to other places than New York. Dublin four years ago, when he was still a detective; the Austrian abortionist from Merrion Square, who had collected information for German Intelligence, beaten to death in an empty house in Danzig; the bodies of a man and a woman buried in the Dublin Mountains because they had loved the wrong people, and because they were in the way of bigger things; the priest who believed Adolf Hitler was the Church’s salvation and the sister who thought her brother was; the only woman he had felt he could love since Maeve’s death. He had not seen Hannah since.
It had all seemed further away than it really was, all that, despite the constant talk of war. It was close again now, some of it anyway. He wasn’t entirely sure what John Cavendish was trusting him with yet. There was something to deliver; but it wasn’t only that. The intelligence officer had told him much more than he needed to. Stefan understood that too; he thought he did. It was partly the man’s isolation, the fact that there was no one he could talk to about what he was doing. He had decided to trust Stefan with something, then he had decided to trust him with more. It was also the fact that he didn’t know where he stood; he didn’t know whether he was in real danger or not. Stefan wasn’t convinced John Cavendish really believed in that Irish village, where everyone knew everyone anyway and, sure, no one ever had to get shot.
Stefan walked back to the desk and sat down. He poured the rest of the Bushmills into his glass and sipped the whiskey. He looked out at the lights of New York, like a thousand stars, rising up, filling the sky and stretching into the distance to merge with the real stars above. The sight was as exciting, as vibrant, as full of life as it was when he had first sat at the window, but something had changed. The city was darker. It was no longer as magical as it had been. And it was a darkness that felt tired and familiar. There were not enough lights, even in New York, to push the darkness away.